Hello and welcome to another episode of WTF Happened to My Body. This is your host Natalie Garay Thank you again for joining me for my podcast. I am really hoping that you're finding these episodes helpful and insightful and that it's helping you to just kind of take a step back and see what's going on or just kind of investigate what's going on with your body, and that you have the tools to look into whatever is bothering you and keeping you from living fully energized and fully functioning.
Today I wanted to talk about something I'm learning more about that I'm pursuing an education in, pursuing a career in, I guess you could say. And it all kind of started back when my mom was diagnosed with dementia. January of 2011 is when she passed away, so we're coming up on three years now.
It was quite a long journey, but looking back over her journey with that I've realized a few things. At one point in her life, she lost her hearing and that resulted in getting a cochlear implant which was quite a big surgery. I know that they had to embed, I don't know the exact particulars, but I think they had to embed a magnet into her skull, and then her hearing aid attached to that magnet.
And looking back, I could see that losing her hearing and what we learned at that time, what they said was it was due to a virus. A virus that she had that wasn't necessarily taken care of in time, something along those lines. And so she lost her hearing in one year and that kind of made her withdraw a little bit.
She wasn't as social any more. And these are some of the things that I noticed throughout her experience. It kind of led into this cognitive decline and ultimate diagnosis with dementia. And what I've learned about dementia is that it's the sum of things we do or don't do in our life, if that makes sense. And I'm continuing to learn more and more about this.
It's not something that all of us are going to necessarily have because our family had it. This is a sum of lack of exercise, lack of nutrition, lack of oxygen to the brain, which of course plays a role in exercise, or lack thereof. Isolation plays a role, lack of social activity, all of these things, hormones play a role, can add up and eventually lead to a cognitive decline.
So I guess my mom's experience was ten or more years or so, and toward the end of her journey, probably the last four or five years, depression actually was another symptom that we looked at. So what we saw with mom was she lost her hearing and started to withdraw. That caused depression, which is also another symptom from what I'm learning.
All of these things could have been signs to us that, you know, could have eventually told us a cognitive decline was, could be coming. So, anyway, what I was going to say was, over the last four or five years of her journey with this, we started seeing a functional medicine doctor and learned that with blood work, we could see what her body was deficient in.
And with these deficiencies came depression, cognitive decline, or you know, brain fog, that sort of thing. Memory loss, of course. She started to repeat herself, share the same stories over and over again, couldn't remember, you know, where she placed things or she couldn't recall words, which is kind of scary because, of course, we all kind of tend to do that. I tend to do that. I can't think of a word when I'm trying to describe something or say something.
So, we saw this functional medicine doctor, we had extensive blood work done, but we also did brain scans with her. And, what we did with her was called a QEEG. And it showed which parts of her brain were inactive, or less active, and which parts of her brain could be overactive. And then she proceeded to do some neurofeedback with that, which was really helpful, and we did see that it started to create some neural pathways, and started to connect parts of her brain a little bit more. And she did this for quite some time.
She was also put on a specific diet. One that would fuel her brain more. It included some eliminations such as alcohol, sugar, things like that. And we would implement more fatty foods. Nuts, almonds, avocado, fish oils, omega 3s, that type of thing to fuel the brain.
So this whole experience started to fuel my curiosity. Started to fuel a bunch of questions that I had about what could we have done sooner? What could she have done to help? And it was a lot of work for her to kind of understand at this stage, a lot of work for her to do on her own, which she couldn't do.
It was something that my dad had to basically become a caretaker and help her in this journey. He would drive her to her appointments and he would have to make sure she ate a certain way or took her vitamins or any other pills that she was taking for this. Exercise was not something she was inclined to do. It was something we had to often suggest or make her do against her will, on a walk, on a hike. I remember taking her to the pool and there were a couple times it was a struggle just to get her into a bathing suit and finally get her to the pool.
And I laugh because that's all you can do. It's not funny. But there were some really, really funny moments throughout this period. Funny but not funny, right? Because this is not an easy journey to go through. For her, of course, and for her family to watch her go through as caretakers. It is heartbreaking, and it is a brutal, brutal thing to experience, personally and as an observer.
And then my grandmother had Alzheimer's, and we're pretty sure that this was kind of the same thing. It was a lack of nutrition, a lack of exercise, a lack of sleep, which really plays a role in our brain function. All of these things that we've been told our entire lives that are super important, but we don't necessarily listen to. A lot of us don't listen to or really take to heart, I guess. Or we know we should do them, we just don't implement it in our schedules. And that's a whole different story. But, when my mom experienced this and when she eventually passed, it was something I was incredibly curious about.
Then went on my own health journey to see what's going on with my body, what's going on with my brain, is this something I can avoid, and as I'm diving more into it, I've discovered that yes, it is something that I can avoid, or prolong.
I can make better choices throughout the day so that this doesn't happen. My mom was 67 when she passed, so it was really early, she was young that she was diagnosed with this. Late 50s, I want to say. And so I went through the same extensive blood work to see if I was deficient in anything.
I had my hormones tested to see if that could be a factor. I also did a QEEG on my brain to see if there were parts of my brain that were inactive or overactive. And then continued to follow a certain diet to fuel my brain and to fuel my body and to basically help me function better. But what I'm finding is I'm learning more and more about functional living, functional medicine, and longevity. And this journey with my mom, and then as I’ve somewhat mentioned here and there, with my daughter's health journey, because we did the same thing with her. Brain scans, nutrition, food, exercise, it led me to decide that I needed to go back to school.
My passion has always been to help women in their physical well being, in their physical function after having kids. But women who've had kids are more at risk of experiencing cognitive decline and dementia because of the hormone shifts that they've experienced. I mean, all women obviously experience hormone shifts throughout their life. At puberty, in our twenties, in our late thirties, again in our mid forties, and again in our mid fifties. So these hormone shifts are actually factors in cognitive decline, which is why women experience higher numbers of cognitive decline than men. So, in the fall of 2022, I went back to school because I wanted to study naturopathic medicine.
As a naturopathic doctor, I can support women with extensive blood work. I can diagnose. I can prescribe any medications. But my go-to has always been to find the root cause, or my curiosity has always been to find the root cause and see how we can prevent or support things in a more natural, holistic way.
My focus is to help women feel better, function better on a regular basis and to be able to do things longer. I know that in our society we're kind of directed to think that at 50, 60, 70, that we're kind of just done, done with life, and we should just kind of sit in our recliner and prop up and be done for the rest of our life and enjoy our relaxation time. But the more we relax, the more we could decline in a sense, and I don't want to be the person who just decides at 50, 60, 70 that my purpose here is complete, that I have nothing else to do, that I have nothing else to contribute.
So I went back to school in the fall of 2022 and had to complete some prerequisites. There are about nine classes I have to complete, mostly chemistry and biology. All the sciences that I'm required to take before I can apply to this naturopathic doctor program here in San Diego.
So, I am about halfway completed with those classes and I can't wait to be a student at Bastyr University to study naturopathic medicine. Now, my fingers are crossed for being able to be in the program in the fall of 2024. That's all based on my completing chemistry classes, and I'm in one right now. I'm also in a biology class right now, and I have another biology class to complete, and three more chemistry classes to complete before my admission.
My admission is based on my grades. And so right now I'm in a period of my life where I can't dick around. I really have to focus on my classes and it is taking everything in me to focus, to concentrate on these things, because my brain has always been not so science focused.
It's a whole new world. It's a whole new way of thinking for me. I'm loving it, and it does require my brain to hurt, which my teacher says means that it's growing and working and learning. So I am looking forward to graduating sometime around 2029, I believe, which means I will be about 51 years old when I graduate from this naturopathic doctor program.
Which kind of makes me smile and it brings so much joy to me. It makes me want to giggle because at 51, who the fuck goes back to school or starts a new career? It's somewhat against the norm of what we've been taught to do, I guess. At least what I have been taught to do. Or, not necessarily taught to do, but what I think society has kind of taught us to do.
I could have easily just, I don't know, got ready for retirement. But this is a new passion that I've discovered based on my mom's experience, based on my daughter's experience, and just my curiosity about how the brain functions. And so my focus in my work at this point in time, of course, once I get into school, and continue through school through those four or five years, It could change, but what I'm hoping to do is to learn as much as I can about the brain and how it functions and how we can support it.
Beginning now, at 45, you know, or at 50, at 60 even, or even at 30, I've been reading this book by Dr. Peter Atiyah called Outlive, and he shares this story about a patient of his, who I believe is about 30, early 30s, mid 30s, and she took a test that showed that she has a higher chance of experiencing Alzheimer's because of a certain gene, or maybe even two genes. She's got a double chance. Of course I'm not explaining it well, but he says At 30, even though the prognosis is dim, she has a really good chance of avoiding the symptoms that could come at a later time in life because she is seeing that there's potential of her getting that now. At 30, she can make lifestyle changes that would prevent her from experiencing the symptoms that she could experience without changing her lifestyle, her lifestyle choices. So, like I said earlier, we know that we should eat better. We know that we should exercise. We know that taking care of ourselves is important.
But when you really look at it, in a sense of: I don't want to experience cognitive decline, I don't want to experience dementia, and our daily habits can either prevent that, or our daily habits can bring that on sooner and make that an inevitable situation. So I just wanted to share that with you and I will be sharing my journey through my schooling process.
I’m starting to share a little bit of it now, but it's a lot and it's a little stressful. And so I hope to have more educational pieces for you that would help you on your journey. I will say a couple of the books that have helped me with this that you may want to check out. The one I just mentioned by Dr.Peter Atiyah, called Outlive. I probably have, I don't know, halfway to go, but the first half has been so insightful and so amazing. And then another one that I loved was Dr. Mark Hyman's Forever Young. Both incredibly good. Incredibly helpful. Incredibly insightful.
So yes, with my experience through school, I hope to give you the tools that would help you prevent cognitive decline. And I will just give you those nuggets so far that eating well and exercise are extremely important. But you can also have your blood work done to find out which nutrients you're deficient in because it will make a huge difference.
When I did my initial blood work we found that I was deficient in chromium, vitamin K, one of the B vitamins, and something called inositol. And I always say that one wrong, but I believe that's what it is. And it just showed that being deficient in those could affect my mood, affect my brain clarity, my mind clarity, could affect my energy levels, could affect my muscles, bones, all of it.
So, you know, a lot of us will experience mood shifts, and we think, oh my gosh, what is that? You know, am I depressed? Is there something going on? Sometimes it could just be a nutrient deficiency. So it's always good to get those things checked. It could be something else, but, you know, at the very least, get your nutrient levels checked.
Get your hormone levels checked. It could be a urine test. It could be a blood test. It could be a saliva test. Your primary practitioner may not do an extensive hormone test if you request it. I've found that if you go to a functional medicine doctor or a naturopathic doctor, you will get more support with the hormone tests.
But your hormone levels are important to look at. And one of the things the doctor might tell you is: oh, well, they shift so many times throughout the day, it's hard to get a good read on them. That's not necessarily true, and it depends on who you talk to and what type of test you do, I believe.
So, I wanted to leave you with that, those little tools, those little tidbits, and to let you know that I'm on a mission, my friends. I'm on a mission to help us feel better, to help us have better cognition, and to help us just live longer and with optimal function. So thank you for listening. Please share this episode with your friends.
And if you haven't already, please follow me on Instagram. You can find me @nataliesayswtf. I will continue to share what I learned with you here and on social media. And until then, my friends stay strong.